Scott Brown lays out plan for federal spending and deficit reduction.

In a press release Monday morning, State Senator and Republican nominee for U.S. Senate Scott Brown laid out a series of proposals for reducing federal spending.

According to the release, Brown"a budget hawk," supports a temporary freeze on non-defense discretionary spending.

"Any serious effort to control the deficit and start reducing the federal debt must begin with no-nonsense spending restraints. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, non-defense discretionary spending is on track to increase by 16% this year, the highest one-year increase since Jimmy Carter in 1978. If America continues on this unsustainable fiscal path, it will lead to higher and higher taxes, a potential loss of confidence in the dollar and add to the nation’s extraordinary debt burden, now at $12 trillion and counting. A freeze on non-military budget accounts is necessary to put the brakes on Washington’s out-of-control spending binge and allow lawmakers to come up with a long-term strategy to reduce the deficit.

Brown also supports a Constiutional Amendement that would provide the President of the United States with the line-item veto. The release notes that "most governors have the power to veto individual sections of a spending bill to remove wasteful and unnecessary spending" (Massachusetts is one such state).

"Senator Brown supports giving line-item veto authority to the President...The line-item veto will allow the President to go after earmark abuse and introduces into the budget process a powerful weapon to crack down on out-of-control congressional spending.

The Brown campaign further stresses the Senator's opposition to a second stimulus "if it simply adds more spending without adding to employment."

According to the Brown campaign:

"The first stimulus bill did not work. The push for a second spending stimulus is an admission that the first stimulus was a failure in creating jobs. Senator Brown believes that lawmakers should go back and recapture the stimulus dollars that have not been spent and either put them toward the deficit, or immediately spend them on infrastructure. He continues to believe that the best way to create jobs is with an across-the-board tax cut for businesses and families."

Finally, Brown proposed a top-to-bottom review of all federal programs.

"Wasteful, unneeded and poorly-run programs need to be overhauled or eliminated as part of a review process that encompasses the entire federal government. Whenever new agencies and programs are enacted, Senator Brown supports including sunset provisions and the creation of a process administered by an independent board that would review and recommend non-renewal if the agency or program has outlived its usefulness. Senator Brown understands the true measure of whether a program is successful is not the size of its budget or the number of employees, but rather what is its effectiveness and how well has it served the public good."